Old Father Thames, it seems he's drowned...

All that I am is fading. Has faded. And, so, what was I?

I was not my other half. He was a monster, born of my inner sins. I was never that evil, was never that vile.

Or was I? They spoke of the passage of fate...we have no such thing here, and yet even though actions speak louder than words, what you will do is the ultimate determination of who you have been, in the end.

In the end. So it has all come to an end, now...I must admit, I wasn't ready.

When did it become too late? When was my complacence cemented as willful ignorance, as a grim, sickly pall over this world?

My world?

Time is a river. You cannot swim up it, and I hadn't tried to. I wanted to leap currents altogether. But if we indulge in this metaphor further, what, in fact, did I do? Did I climb upon the bank and walk away entirely?

No. I sat on the side of the creek, crossing up my legs so they wouldn't get muddy, and I watched. I watched as one watches a car wreck, watches a car wreck itself, twisted sideways, and thinks, goodness, I hope everyone inside is okay.

Everyone inside. You don't think about them getting out of the car. You simply watch the car burn. Specifically, you think about the people sitting inside the car with shards of glass jutting into their abdomens and rashing burns screaming up and down their arms because they were wearing t-shirts, getting ready to take holiday down by the ocean, but some fool wasn't looking where he was going, didn't check all his signals and blind spots, and now they're in a right smash-up.

Up until now, I have been reviewing the mistakes of this anti-spontaneous generation. This world, which I have only just left. But what about the other world?

All those people. Technicians, researchers, secretaries, security staff, engineers, board members, every single employee who was or who wasn't lower-ranking than me, all vanished in an instant, thanks to my bootless hubris. They were not mine. That was not my world.

That was not my world to destroy.

I knew that, didn't I? Because I didn't mean to destroy it. I didn't think it would disappear.

Just what did you think, Klaus? Pray tell, precious Architect, venerated builder, just what exactly goes on when you break ground for a new avenue, a new byway, a new mecca of human movement? Something has to give, right? Even for the maw of the street, the mouth of the river, someone, somehow, has to endow the making of the way.

All time has to start somewhere.

The gift I gave was not the genesis of new time, and my death in itself was not a gift. They are still saddled with the broken system of my feeble-minded design. But they will overcome the shackles I have placed on them. For they are not as weak as I. I drowned...because I did not tread the water.

Oh, yes, my greatest sin. I gave up. I was always going to.